1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to authenticating a person's voice for accessing a device, and more specifically relates to a continuous voice authentication system and method for telephonic devices.
2. Related Art
As new telephony technologies continue to emerge, the ability to authenticate users will become more and more important. For instance, as wireless devices become smaller, they become much easier to steal, misplace or lose. If such devices can only be utilized by authorized users, the owners or service providers of the devices need not be concerned about unauthorized use. In addition to the actual devices themselves, the information being transmitted is also susceptible to unauthorized use. Accordingly, systems are required to ensure that an individual receiving information over a telephone network is authorized to receive it.
Numerous technologies exist for utilizing voice recognition to authenticate users. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,393,305 B1, “Secure Wireless Communication User Identification by Voice Recognition,” issued to Ulvinen et al., on May 21, 2002, which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a method of authenticating a user of a wireless device using voice recognition. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,288, “Simultaneous Voice Recognition and Verification to Allow Access to Telephone Network Services,” issued to Hunt et al., on Mar. 12, 1996, which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a voice recognition system for enabling access to a network by entering a spoken password.
While such prior art references address the need for authenticating users of telephonic systems using voice recognition, the authentication processes are limited in that once a user is initially authenticated, no further steps are taken to ensure the validity of the user. Thus, if an unauthorized user could overcome the authentication process once (e.g., by speaking a password in a manner to fool the system), the user would have unimpeded access to use the device or the information available over the network.
Accordingly, a need exists for a voice recognition system that provides a higher degree of authentication for users of telephonic systems.